Chapter 90: Harvesting Strange Creatures

Chapter 90: Harvesting Strange Creatures

Picking up where the last chapter left off: I’d started hunting the toad-like monsters in earnest, glad for the chance to build up my cosmic force of consciousness. Their consciousness in particular carried an obscure quality that let me see this world more clearly.

The toad monsters had circled up and were spitting poisonous mist to keep me from closing in.

That only sharpened my interest in the mist itself. If it could dissolve an opponent’s force of consciousness, then getting my hands on some would let me suppress enemies far more effectively in future fights.

So I stopped attacking, crouched at a distance, and watched.

Seeing me hold off, the monsters didn’t dare scatter either. They stayed huddled in their circle, motionless.

I went back to the killing ground and started dissecting the toad monsters I’d already put down, curious what exactly produced the mist.

Three corpses in, I found it: some unidentifiable chemical, black and murky, stored in glandular sacs between the mouth and nasal cavity. Each creature only carried a small amount on its own, but pooled together in a group, the effect compounded, giving them a genuinely solid defense against outsiders. It really was an effective chemical weapon—highly acidic, and quick to vaporize on contact with air.

Even after I’d harvested the force of consciousness from these corpses, the glands themselves remained intact.

So I tried extracting the substance and flicked a bit into the air to test it. Sure enough, it flashed instantly into poisonous smoke.

I started gathering it in bulk from the bodies.

The monsters huddled together, seeing me switch from attacking to dissecting their fallen comrades, tried throwing spears at me again.

But that little trick couldn’t touch me. And every time they broke formation to throw, I harvested the consciousness of a few more.

Which just forced them to huddle back up.

And every time they huddled, I went right back to dissecting their dead and stripping the toxin from their glands. This went on for several rounds.

Eventually the toad monsters couldn’t stand the torment anymore. They sent one of their own toward me, waving a white flag.

Surrendering to me?

Oh, come on. Keep fighting—I still wanted more consciousness, more toxin. Once they surrendered, I’d feel too awkward to keep harvesting them.

The one holding the white flag approached, trembling, and babbled something in a string of sounds I couldn’t understand at all.

So I tried addressing it through cosmic force of consciousness instead.

It actually worked.

The creature understood me perfectly well, and switched over to cosmic consciousness to speak with me directly. It expressed a wish to make peace, and asked me to spare them.

I told it, “First—you started this fight. You attacked first, I only struck back. Justice is on my side. Second—compensate me with enough toxin and cosmic force of consciousness to make it worth my while.”

The creature hesitated, then said it would go back and discuss it with the others.

While it went to confer, I held off on dissecting the rest of the corpses.

About ten minutes later, four toad monsters approached. Two carried a sealed clay jar between them; the other two hauled a round, emerald-green plant.

Once they’d come close, I opened the jar. Something dark and sticky sat inside. Before I could even get a good look, black smoke boiled up out of it with a hissing sound. One of the creatures hastily clapped the lid back on and said, “Immortal Master, this is Cangyan. It comes from the Cave of Death, deep within Floating Island. We draw a little of it into our glandular sacs and spray it out to defend ourselves when it truly matters.”

I pointed at the emerald sphere and asked through cosmic consciousness, “And this?”

One of them pointed at the green orb and said, “This is the Ningxiang Tree. A local rarity—only ten grow every hundred years. Absorbing it raises one’s force of consciousness…